Recent psychological research suggests that Americans unaffiliated with traditional religions are more likely to believe in UFOs, ghosts, and the like than their affiliated counterparts. This conclusion, writes David French, gives the lie to the “myth” that “if you defeat the forces of traditional Christianity . . . then you’ll make way for a more enlightened, rational, and humane nation and world. In other words, the alternative to religion is [considered to be] reason, and reason is mankind’s great liberating force.” French argues that the real alternative is something significantly worse:

In the United States we’re replacing an organized, systematic theology with . . . nothing. Sure, there’s the moralistic therapeutic deism of the modern “spiritual” American, but its “God wants me to be happy” ethos isn’t quite up to the challenge of dealing with real life. So, we search and search, and in the immortal worlds of the [country-music artist] Aaron Tippin, we learn the hard way that “you gotta stand for something, or you’ll fall for anything”—and “anything” can include indigo auras or the “vibration of a thought.” . . .

It turns out that when men and women shed their faith, they don’t necessarily get more liberal, but they do get more tribal and vicious. Many members of the alt-right, for example, famously shun Evangelical Christianity. Indeed, as we learn from the battle between [members of the hard left] and their right-wing counterparts—the emerging class of godless, angry populists—when you remove from your moral code any obligation to love your enemies, politics hardly improves. The damage extends far beyond politics, of course.

If there’s one abiding consequence of the shallow theologies and simple superstitions of our time, it’s the inability to endure or make sense of adversity. It’s a phenomenon that fractures families, fosters a sense of rage and injustice, and ultimately results in millions of Americans treating problems of the soul with mountains of pharmaceuticals. Human beings are hard-wired to search for meaning and purpose. As we conduct that search, will our nation and culture continue to value and to respect the [sort of] faith that grants hope of redemption, patience through present suffering, and a means to discern between good and evil? Or will it continue to shun [tradition] in favor of a grab-bag of ghosts, UFOs, and wishful thoughts?

Two extraordinary events demonstrate something important about Israel’s most fervent adversaries. One was a speech given at something called The People’s Forum (funded generously by Goldman Sachs), which stated, “When the state of Israel is finally destroyed and erased from history, that will be the single most important blow we can give to destroying capitalism and imperialism.”

The suggestion that this tiny state is the linchpin of a global, centuries-old phenomenon like capitalism goes well beyond anything resembling rational criticism. Even if Israel were guilty of genocide, apartheid, and oppression—which of course it is not—it would not follow that its destruction would help end capitalism or imperialism.

The other was an anti-Israel protest that took place in front of New York City’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, deemed “complicit” in Israel’s evils. At organizers’ urging, participants shouted their slogans at kids in the cancer ward, who were watching from the windows. Given Hamas’s indifference toward the lives of Gazan children, such callousness toward non-Palestinian children from Hamas’s Western allies shouldn’t be surprising. The protest—like the abovementioned speech—deliberately conveyed the message that Israel is the ultimate evil and its destruction the ultimate good, cancer patients be damned.

The fact that Israel’s adversaries are almost comically perverse does not mean that they can be dismissed. If its allies fail to understand the obsessive and irrational hatred that it faces, they cannot effectively help it defend itself.